


breathe in, breathe out

by sunbreaksdown



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Blackrom, Choking, F/F, Self-Harm, Self-Medication, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-14
Updated: 2011-12-14
Packaged: 2017-10-27 08:32:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/293776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunbreaksdown/pseuds/sunbreaksdown
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aradia's wings twitch as if she knows what you're thinking. You suppose that, no, there is nothing neither heroic nor just about dying of old age; it simply is what it is.</p><p>(Six sweeps later, Vriska and Aradia get some closure.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	breathe in, breathe out

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place in the same verse as [The Earth of a Hundred Nations](http://archiveofourown.org/works/266110). In short, it's set on a new Earth that came with winning the session, wherein everyone is alive, and the trolls go unnoticed amongst humans.

     Depending on how you choose to quantify time, which is never really feasible when she's involved, it's been half a lifetime since last you met. You opt not to include any fleeting periods of temporary termination, because death held no chronology for either of you, and anything close to the dream world is similarly sealed off. The edge of the oaken table is cracked with age, signs of stale growth in what now feels like an airless room, and you push your thumbnail into the hair-thin fractures. Your fingertips drum against the tabletop, and you try creating a pattern of six beats to the bar, one for each sweep, but you falter at the end, adding in two more twitches of discomfort.

     Six sweeps and you have nothing to say. You could've gone an eternity without ever seeing her again.

     Your eyes wander aimlessly around the kitchen, your kitchen, as if this isn't your own home. Everything looks strange to you; not new, per se, but as if the only familiarity you have with the layout is born from glossy photos in crumpled magazines. The window is stained with raindrops and the sky beyond that is grey, and as you stare into nothing, you wonder when the last time you backed down from _anything_ was. It shouldn't be so difficult to make eye contact.

     And so you look at her, briefly. The hot chocolate you've been sipping on in lieu of conversation thickens in your throat, and your stomach bundles up in knots, wanting to churn it back out. You choke for half of a second, nostrils flaring as your airways burn, but she doesn't laugh. Laughter may well be more tolerable than this web of silence, but the ring of it in your ears would make your fist come down against the table, mug shattering in your grip. She just bows her head, sips on her own drink, and shows no sign of spraying the tea across the room.

     You scowl, feel better for doing so, and finally become comfortable enough to slump in your seat. It's easier to get a proper look at her the second time, now that you've got the arduous process of embarrassing yourself over and done with. While your horns have towered with time, hooks and crescents leading the way, hers have gone in a different direction altogether. They are great spirals now, twisting in on themselves, spreading outwards. They are thick, thicker than yours, and if you wanted to be here and if you had anything to say, you'd ask her if they were as heavy as they look, because the fact that you have to duck your head when going through doorways is already enough of a pain.

     The other changes are barely worth noting. She looks older, has settled in to the structure of her own bones, and a ring of rusty red keeps the black and yellow of her eyes apart. You didn't need to see her to know any of this. You don't care that she's cut her hair so that it barely reaches down further than her shoulders, and you don't give enough of a shit to ask her how she got that single scar against the right side of her jawline.

     In spite of what you went through, there's nothing for you to say. You didn't even go through things _together_. You simply happened to share a similar set of circumstances, a fixed perimeter in which to play, and that's the long and short of it, soulbots-be-dammed. Logic would dictate that you shatter the silence to ask what she's been doing with herself for the past six sweeps, but you already know that much. And how could you not? Your home is a world comprised of billions of humans and no more or less than one dozen trolls, and somehow, you always end up hearing about somebody else's business, whether you want to or not. The assumption that your grey skin creates some sort of lasting bond is founded in nothing resembling reality, but as usual, everyone else seems to know what's good for you, and just what it is you want to hear.

     You lived with John, when the game was first won. You were one of the only trolls who opted to stay in a single place, because although there was a whole new alien planet to explore, a home was a home, and for once it was nice that it wasn't a great, hulking, empty castle. But _nice_ has never really suited you, and so off you went, trying to do your own thing. Your own thing that was a lot harder than expected, lacking in pirate ships as you were. The others explored the land, and you made a mess of things, just like usual. It was almost reassuring to know that some things never changed.

     But the universe accommodated you, finding that it had a little spare energy left over to make life easy for a dozen trolls. You know where she's been, and you know what she's done. Kanaya, she gave up her little excursion sweeps ago when she decided that she'd much rather fall into a routine of domestic pity with Lalonde, but before that, she'd been travelling with Karkat and—

     And Aradia, who sits before you, dropping sugar cubes into her tea, one after the other.

     “It was Terezi's idea,” Aradia tells you, answering a question you didn't ask. Your shoulders rise up. You had your suspicions, because the two of them have always kept in contact, on some level, and Terezi's head sometimes rattles when the idea of the last of trolls sticking together rolls around inside of it. “Wow. It's been a long time. This is a pretty great set-up you've got, Vriska.”

     Four sweeps ago, with Feferi's help, you and Terezi raided a sunken ship, and surfaced with stacks of silver in your grasp. It was much more lucrative than you idea of robbing a bank.

     Aradia glances around, taking in more detail than your blank, thus far unblinking eyes have, and then she smiles. Her, white, flat teeth are on display, serving as rows of something much more fitting for a human than one of your own race. She smiles around the edge of her teacup, and you remember the time you told her that you were going to tear your own heart out in order to feel something for the both of you. The corner of your mouth twitches, and you look down at your hand, but fail to see even a fleeting reminder of the past. There's nothing but flesh and blood there, cold steel long since gone.

     It's the same with her.

     “Whatever,” you say, heels digging into the floor, chair swinging back onto two legs. Formalities don't really count for much when you're effectively staring at a stranger. “What do you want?”

     Aradia's brow lifts as her lips part, but then she brings white china to her lips, buying herself time to hesitate. You've been through this with the others, or at least those who are still willing to talk to you, even with everything said and done. She likely wants to reminisce, to talk to someone who still shares the memory of Alternia, and how life used to be. Unfortunately, your desire for nostalgia has all but withered away, because this planet has been better to you than you so-called home ever was. It's not kill or be killed, and it doesn't all revolve around your lusus, each and every minute of the day. You've been on both worlds for just as long as each other, and you know that you're bound to start feeling settled, sooner or later. It won't take long for the scales to tip.

     “Just to talk,” Aradia eventually says, still smiling. “That's alright, isn't it?”

     The skin under your thumbnail stings when you press it too hard into the split wood.

     You have absolutely nothing to share with her, and the fact that you, Vriska Serket, have nothing to say in the first place should be telling enough. It's been twelve sweeps, and you want to know why she isn't _dead_ yet. The corrosion of her warm blood should've become so thick in her veins that the pressure of her heart pounding wasn't enough to keep life pumping through her. There are twelve of you left and no hope of ever reviving the race, and while the caste system no longer has a right to stand, what with maroon blood being as rare as violet, biology is biology, and nothing should change that. Maybe she'll be lucky, for a rustblood. Maybe she has two dozen sweeps in her, rather than just the one.

     Aradia's wings twitch as if she knows what you're thinking. You suppose that, no, there is nothing neither heroic nor just about dying of old age; it simply is what it is.

     This realisation should bring into question the essence of your own immortality, but your blood swirls slowly, and you've always known that your lifetime would be measured in centuries. Right now, you can't do much to differentiate between a hundred sweeps and an eternity in your mind, and so you leave things as they are, deciding that you'll deal with your extended fate when the time comes.

     “Whatever,” you say again, knocking back the last of your hot chocolate. It wasn't stirred properly, and what hasn't dissolved clots in the bottom of the cup. Six sweeps, and you've said six words to her. Being aware of that doesn't stop you from getting up to leave, though.

*

     Sopor slime was one of the few substances the new universe failed to recreate.

     These days, you don't fare too badly without it. The first sweep was the worst, no matter how the humans assured you that you'd get better without it, and when Lalonde finally made her return, you soon learnt that there were alternatives available. After the second time you slid a kitchen knife into your thigh, just to see if you could, apparently, she helped you crush together a cocktail that did something to take the edge off the buzzing in the back of your mind. These days, she writes prescriptions for you. Xenopsychology isn't even a real word, she says, and gives up on committing herself to a single diagnosis.

     You've been sleeping in a bed for as long as you slept in slime, but it still doesn't feel natural. Not wrong, not uncomfortable; it's just not how you were designed to recuperate, but it does the job. It's early when you crawl beneath the covers tonight, and you place your glasses on the bedside table, just about able to make out the blurred red numbers of your alarm clock. It's barely gone ten, and you sigh, fingers raking through your hair. You're too exhausted to get back up, but seeing Aradia has made you think of the last time you saw the others, so you know there's no chance of you being able to get to sleep.

     As with Aradia, you haven't seen Tavros or Sollux ever since you all first found yourself on the new Earth. But they're doing well, for vague values thereof, or so you're told. It's hard not to run into Karkat when you're visiting John, and he's managed to find a shitty job that he swears about a lot, but it pays the bills, so you don't know what his problem is. Nepeta, for god knows what reason, always seems to remember when your wriggling day is, and sends along atrocious artwork on the day, having been inspired by the human phenomenon of birthday cards. And nothing gets drawn by Nepeta that doesn't have some of Equius' residual influence therein. Kanaya is still close, almost uncomfortably so. She and Rose invited you over for Christmas a few perigees ago, and god help you, you actually enjoyed yourself. Gamzee comes and goes as you'd expect him to, and Eridan never fails to show up when you track down Feferi for one of the aforementioned shipwreck raids.

     Which leaves Terezi. There's no wondering to be done about what she's been up to when she throws her weight against the bed, squabbles with the bed covers, and then wraps her arms around you.

     You grunt. She laughs under her breath, digging her pointy chin into your shoulder. The tip of her glasses press against your temple, and you think she's chronically stupid, so you reach back, pulling them off and depositing them down next to your own. Trying to prevent her from asking you anything as overwhelmingly useless as _What's wrong?_ , you screw your eyes shut, but don't really believe that she's going to be convinced you've fallen asleep that quickly. Terezi jabs you in the back, just left of your spine, and you manage to stay almost perfectly still.

     It takes four jabs to wear you down, at which point you tilt your head just enough to the side to glare up at her. Blind though she may be, Terezi always says that she knows when you're looking, and you gave up being incredulous long sweeps ago.

     “Are you going to keep sulking?” she asks with good humour. It took you a while to realise that good humour didn't necessarily imply mocking, but knowing that now doesn't stop you from jutting your shoulder blades back in an effort to push her away. Her hold on your waist tightens, and you bite the inside of your mouth, not about to snap back that you're not sulking, like she's expecting you to. Your silence is the only thing that gets her to settle down, gets her to stop laughing, and then she's threading her fingers through your hair, and you tense, as if expecting her nails to rake lines in their wake. “It's just Aradia! What's your problem with her?”

     You'd thought yourself entirely drained, up until she said that. Suddenly, you're bolt upright before your perspective of the room has time to catch up with the sudden rush of your mind, staring down at Terezi with something between anger and disappointment written into your expression. You grab at a pillow, nails digging in.

     “She fucking _killed_ me!”

     “So?” Terezi asks, throwing her hands in the air as she props herself up on her elbows, slumped against the headboard. “You killed her first, Serket.”

     You have a thousand and one excuses to write off all the things you've done, and everyone around you grew tired of hearing them even before you'd perpetrated the supposed crimes. You bite back the fact that it was _Sollux_ who did that, not you, knowing that Terezi won't take that for what it is. Never have you once denied being a killer, never have you considered your hands to be clean, but there are some things that just don't compare, no matter the outcome. Taking a deep breath, you're glad when Terezi mumbles under her breath, because you don't trust yourself to say anything coherent right now.

     “ _I_ killed you, too,” she says, like you could ever forget that. Like the memory of cold steel piercing your skin, sinew and heart alike could ever escape you; and shit, you think, your heart would probably do Aradia no good now, having been skewed right through the middle. Terezi reclaims her glasses, fiddles with the arms, and you want to tell her that it's not the same, that some things just don't compare, no matter how bloody the outcome, but you don't.

     You don't, and it's shitty of you, but you just allow Terezi to sit there, thinking about the time she stabbed you in the back. To balance things out, you remember how void and empty your own eyes were, wiped in a way that didn't reflect the block colour of hers, and press the heels of your palms to your temples. You remember the weightlessness, the disunity between you and your senses, but more than that, you remember how _long_ death had felt.

     And that was okay. That was okay, you try telling yourself, because it's not your death itself at Aradia's hands that makes your head pound. It's the act of dying, a memory that outlasts all others.

     “You used to be friends with her,” Terezi says. She's grasping, now.

     You just shake your head miserably, groaning into your palms. You don't think that's true. No matter what you may have thought you felt back then, back when everything was a game and consequences weren't something you were acquainted with, you don't think that Aradia ever realised that you held anything other than animosity for her. By the time you got it through your thick skull and it occurred to you to actually point this out, well, she'd been dead for too long to even comprehend how to care.

     “I don't have any friends,” you grumble, and hate the way that your mouth twitches at the corners, because you're actually finding some measure of humour in the situation. Goddammit, you _want_ to be in a spectacularly shitty mood. You've earned that much.

     Terezi doesn't miss the way the sombre nature of your tone cracks at the end, and before you know it, she's got her arms flung around you again. Your body tenses when she rests her cheek to your back and the tip of a horn digs in at your nape. Relenting, you fall down against the bed, repositioning yourself so that you're actually comfortable. Her horns are almost as tall as yours are.

     “Lalonde likes you,” she says with a smirk, tucking her head beneath your chin. Both horns frame your face, and you suppose you're trapped like that.

     “Doesn't count,” you tell her with a yawn, gaze darting over to the light that's still very much turned on above you. If it doesn't bother Terezi, then you decide that you won't let it bother you, either. You'll sleep in the light. “We're hate-friends. It's different.”

     “Uh-huh,” Terezi says, voice thick with sleep. You roll your eyes, because you're supposed to be the exhausted one. “Just think about what I said, okay?”

     You don't bother answering her one way or another, because her breathing shifts, becomes heavier, and you know that she's already given herself over to sleep. While you expect your own exhaustion to conflict with the racing of your mind, it can't take much longer than mere minutes for you to drift off.

     In your dreams, Aradia's hands wrap around bone-white china, metal fingers and knuckles gleaming under the spluttering light of your kitchen.

*

     Kanaya's a good moirail, you grudgingly admit to nobody but yourself. You visit her two days later when you know she'll be home, working on whatever ridiculous dress she's trying to get somebody into this time, having apparently not grown out of that whole fashion-minded phase yet. Sitting at the table, you swing your feet back and forth, not realising you're doing so until Kanaya stares at you for just a second too long and then searches the cupboards for the last piece of chocolate in the house. You take it, say nothing, and grip it between both hands as you eat, like Kanaya's actually going to snatch it away from you.

     Somehow, she manages to steer the conversation so that you reach a point whereby it isn't strange when she casually mentions where Aradia's staying. She's as fussy as ever, completely unable to mind her own business, nosing into matters where she doesn't belong, but she only mentions it because she needs to remember to recommend one of her favourite nearby restaurants to Aradia. Of course. You tell Kanaya that _Uh huh, that's niiiiiiiice_ , scrunch the wrapper loudly in your fist, and pretend that you don't even hear the address she doles out.

     An hour later, you're stood outside of the building Aradia's renting an apartment in. You could've driven your bike up, but no, you opted to walk. You knew that getting there was inevitable, but you wanted to delay the process as much as was possible. You can't say why. Maybe you needed the opportunity to work out just what it is possessing you to actively seek her out, but if that's the case, it was nothing but a waste of time. You still have no idea why you're there.

     If you turned back now, you'd never have to see her again. Even if it came down to your immortality serving you well, and you were still stood on Earth long after all others came and went, you still wouldn't ever have to see her again. It wouldn't be difficult to avoid her with a whole world to call you own.

     You jab a finger against the buzzer for her apartment. Three seconds pass and you want to turn and run. Something keeps you grounded, though, and you don't want to have to face up to that something being fear. Twelve seconds and static meets your ears, and then she's asking who's there. You don't reply. She asks again, and through grit teeth, you tell her that _It's me_. Belatedly, you worry that she won't recognise your voice, because you only gave her those six words two days ago, and the speaker makes everything sound tinny.

     She doesn't reply, but there's a jarring beep that lets you know the door's open, and there's no backing out now that she knows you're there. The lobby of the building is dim and unmanned, and while you doubt that the security camera pointing at you is actually recording, the stairwell doesn't smell like piss. That's one upside. You neglect the elevator, not because you don't trust it to get you to your destination, but because the staircase will take longer to scale, and maybe you can stomp out some of your anger against it.

     The steps are made of stone, no carpets, and the handrails are all bent out of shape. It's colder in there than it was outside, and the waning lights that flicker out of sight for long seconds at a time make the whole atmosphere really fucking creepy. That suits her just perfectly, though. You remember her ghosts as well as you remember most things you rather wouldn't, and you wonder if she can still call them out of the ground now that you're not on Alternia.

     You don't want to find out. You want _her_ to be a ghost, and not one that's haunting you.

     The inside of the apartment is in direct juxtaposition with the outer décor. You stand in the centre of the room, arms wrapped around yourself while Aradia gets you a glass of water or something, you weren't listening, and just look around. She's taken the time to make the place her own, which means that she's going to be there for a considerable amount of time, probably. Bad luck for Vriska Serket once again. There are all kinds of useless trinkets scattered around the room, on the coffee table, shelves and cabinets; odd fossils, pieces of broken pottery, useless looking smooth shards of stone. It occurs to you in that moment that it doesn't seem as if anything about Aradia has changed, as far as the surface goes.

     An unfair assessment of things, though. She probably thinks the same about you.

     Aradia returns with the water, you take it from her, and for a moment, it's like you're two perfectly civil trolls, participating in a perfectly civil social call. Until, two sips in, you decide that you didn't even _want_ water in the first place, reach out your arm, and then pour the whole glass over Aradia's head. She cringes, having expected it on some level, but hadn't been prepared for just how cold it was. Her eyes flash red.

     Well. Redder.

     “Fuck off,” you say. You're yelling at her in her own apartment, as if she's the one who has to back off. As if by visiting you, she's imposed on what you've made out of your life, and running from her won't be enough to shake her. Not this time. The empty glass slips from your hand, landing silently against the carpet, rolling no more than an inch to the side. Your toes curl in your boots. It wouldn't be difficult to shatter. “Why did you come back!?”

     You make it sound as if she's been gone from you. As if you've noticed her absence. There's been no void in your life without her; nothing more than an empty, unattended thought that you never lingered over. There's a disconnection between your actions and your thoughts, and you only realise you're thrashing out your arms when Aradia reaches for your shoulders. At first you think she's trying to calm you down, because that's what they _always_ try to do, even Kanaya and Terezi and Lalonde, but then you feel just how tightly she's gripping.

     It's like she wants to bruise the bone so that it's marred by the shape of her fingerprints. She knew you came here looking for a fight, and she's not about to back down. Aradia pushes you back, teaches you that the wall was closer than you expected, because the next lungful of air you gasp down is clouded with the taste of your own blood. Your wings crumple and crease at the edges, and the points of your horns scrape against the wallpaper and the plaster beneath it. Fuck her and fuck her security deposit.

     With the initial shock compensated for, you lock eyes with her, and for a brief moment, she's not threatening you. She's warning you. She's giving you the chance to step away from this intact, and you'll be dammed if you're going to take her up on it. Aradia's hands move from your shoulders to your throat when you don't back down, and you use your own to grab at the front of her shirt. Your mind races, because you can't control her, and yet all cylinders are firing as if you can hope to slide your thoughts into hers. It's not like with Terezi, whose mind has always been too much of a chaotic mess, worse still when the influx of colours and tastes and textures took over, for you to read; she's too full of pity for it to even end up quite like this.

     But the pity's good. The pity's kept you sharp, has balanced out the central emotion. You've got plenty of pent up hatred to put in this.

     With the sole of one boot planted against the wall, you push off, still clinging to her, and charge as quickly across the room as you can. It works. You make sure that she's the one pressed against the wall this time, curved horns making contact first, and that she knows that you can just tell how dizzy, how nauseous, it's made her. It's just a shame that with Aradia pinned before you, unable to see straight, in that exact moment, your whole body seizes up because she _terrifies_ you.

     You remember her metal body. You remember the perigees of feeling _nothing_ she went through, and every inch of you, flesh and mind alike, knows how it felt when that became too much for her. That part isn't something you remember, because it's not a memory, worn by time; it exists in the present, always clawing at the back of your mind, no matter what you do. She beat you to death. She raised her steel fists and pounded every last drop of life out of you when it would have been so, so easy for her to take you out in half a beat of an artificial heart; but she beat you to death and she lived every moment of it.

     You strike her across the jaw, and you're amazed that your joints still work. The hinges should be fused shut, because your eyes are wide, and you can't think of anything other than the way she ensured that you couldn't move. You couldn't even blink, couldn't breathe without choking on blood, and there you were, all alone, knowing once and for all that there was nobody left who cared enough to save you. Nobody who would grant you the mercy of a blade across your throat, through your chest. There you were, awash in your own blood with not a single hope of surviving, and still you were desperate for salvation, as if there anything for you to go back to.

     Aradia's hands remain wrapped around your throat, like she wants to make you a prisoner in your own body again. That must have been how she felt in her metal shell: trapped. She wanted you to know what it was like, because you put her there.

     What Aradia did to you back then may well have been justified, but if she throttles you to death now, the same won't hold true. You've had your revenge on one another, and amidst the frenzy, some part of your mind clears and reminds you that you never really got closure. And so that must be what this is. She could kill you now, if she wanted, but you'd be back on your feet within seconds, fulfilling the role of neither hero nor villain.

     But the promise of return doesn't make you willing to throw another of your lives away, conditionally unlimited though they may be. You've done too much for that, you've come too far, and you don't want to die. You don't want to die, and Aradia's fingers loosen around your throat. All of a sudden, your heart is pounding hard enough to bruise, as if your pulse is only now able to listen to the signals tearing through your thoughts. Aradia's hands drop to her sides, and you hit her again, just below her left eye. Teeth grit together, Aradia turns her head to the side, trying to hiss the pain out of her system.

     You hit her stomach, maybe her ribs too, you're not sure, and then you're struggling to breathe, like you've only just now remembered that you were being _choked_. You're so light-headed that panting makes your vision flash, and you slump forward, forehead cracking against hers. This close up, you can't see too much of her. Her eyes, a bruise already forming on her cheek, blood smeared on her black lips. You breathe out against her mouth, lips curling into a smile that ought to make her skin crawl. Both of your hands slam against the wall, palms first, and she doesn't even flinch.

     At some point, her arms have made their way around your waist. You let her pull you closer, nails scarring the pattern of the wallpaper.

     And then something happens. Something that, by all rights, you should've missed with the way that your head spins. You're only now feeling the sting flare up where she must've scraped at your throat. But for a moment, her eyes cloud and clear, as if something she's kept buried for a very, very long time is trying to make its way to the glassy surface above. Aradia's hands press gently to your back, as if reminding you that she could, and will, tear you apart, if you give her enough of a reason. More than that, she wants you to remember that she _has_ , because she lives every day with the memory of what you did to her.

     “You _killed_ me,” Aradia hisses in a hushed whisper you barely hear. Perhaps that's why she pulled you so close.

     You don't put any thought into it, though.

     You might mumble _yeah_ , but the only coherent recollection you have is of lifting one hand to tilt her jaw up, leaning in to kiss her. There doesn't need to be any more of a fight right now, and you certainly don't need to say anything else; you've worked it all out yourself. You know why she's here. It's because of the exact same thing that's kept her away for so very long, the one thing she's not been able to face until now.

     You.

     It's all your fucking fault.

     Aradia grunts against your mouth but doesn't resist, and when she begins to push at you, hands on your hips, you know that you never stood a chance against her. She's the lowest of the low, short nails, blunt teeth, but there's something so ferocious about her that there's nothing for it but to shudder. You want to run from this, from her death and your own, and that's the exact reason you stay, pinned to floor. Aradia does as she pleases, and you know that the taste of rust won't leave your tongue for long perigees to come; that Terezi's going to want to know what happened to your throat.

     You try bringing your own hands up to your neck, just to trace the shape of the scratches with your fingertips, but Aradia stops you. She makes sure that you know she's there, that she's solid and whole and flesh and bone, ensuring that you don't need scars to understand that much.

     She makes sure that you know she isn't a ghost, and it's certainly one way for the both of you to get closure.


End file.
